Problem with Pythoncard

[Varun Hiremath]

Hello everybody,
I was trying to install pythoncard on my system and I got this
error. I am using an unstable version of Debian. Can someone tell me
what the error could be. Is it because I am usingUnstable version of
Debian I am getting this error or is it because of some other
reason.

I hope I am mailing this error to the right mailing list if not pls
let me know.


**********************************
apt-get install pythoncard
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely
that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
pythoncard: Depends: python-pythoncard (= 0.8.1-2) but it is not
going to be installed
Depends: pythoncard-tools (= 0.8.1-2) but it isnot going
to be installed
E: Broken packages
*********************************


--
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Varun Hiremath
461, Jamuna Hostel
IIT Madras,
Chennai - 600 036
mob : +919840299732

 

[Steve M]

There are some Python packages that I prefer to get from the developer
instead of from my Linux distribution (Debian).
Usually it is because I intend to upgrade the package before, or more
often than, my distribution releases a new version. (A likely scenario
if you use Debian - zing!)

So I download the source.tar.gz from the developer. I extract it into
~/src, change to the directory and run "python setup.py build". (Here
you might recursively detour to install a dependency.) Then I change to
the build/lib directory and in there is all of the modules. In
build/scripts will be any included scripts. I copy the contents of
build/lib to ~/python/lib and the scripts to ~/python/scripts.
(Alternatively I could make symbolic links.) My PYTHONPATH environment
variable includes ~/python/lib. (Alternatively you can modify
sitecustomize.py to insert that directory into the sys.path but this
could have system-wide implications.) You can also add ~/python/scripts
to your command path. (I tend to manually type the path whenever I want
to run something in there.)

Now the package is available for import from any python program that I
run. I can reproduce this on a system that I do not have root for but
only a user shell account. It is easy to transfer the whole library to
another computer just by copying the relevant directories. And if I
want to upgrade I can download the new source tarball, build it, and
change the symlinks or overwrite the old directory contents.

I find this is a reasonably convenient way to have up-to-date packages
from the Python world on my stable-but-not-entirely-state-of-the-art
Debian system. I'm sure as time goes by I'll refine this system. Or
maybe Python Eggs will solve most of the problems...